WALKING

THE WORDS
activity 45

AL LI GA TOR

Valentina Loiudice
701361
 MATERIALS: Board
AGE: 4 – 12 and pen/chalk
DESCRIPTION: The
children practice the stress
patterns in difficult or long
words by walking the word
TIME: 30
(small, light steps for
minutes
unstressed syllables; long,
energetic steps for
LARGE stressed syllables).
CLASSES?
Yes

ORGANISATION:
Whole class
AIM: To learn and
practice stress patterns
MIXED
in difficult words.
LEVEL?
Yes
 ALLIGATOR

key/board com/pu/ter mi/cro/phone

edu/ca/tion Sa/turday Under/stand/ing

Autobi/og/raphy Interdisci/plin/ary multi/cul/turalism

ex/pre/ssion En/thu/siasm car/niv/orous

Cou/ra/geous misunder/stand/ing Biodi/ver/sity

environ/men/talism conver/sat/ion alpha/bet/ical

Responsi/bil/ity Uncon/troll/able Fan/ta/stic

Preparation: to start I decide which words they are going to practice.

I choose words that the children know the meaning of so that they can concentrate on the pronunciation only.
1st phase:
I explain the children they are
going to learn an interesting way
to remember stress patterns in
long or difficult words.
 2nd phase:
I choose a long and difficult word like Alligator.
I ask the children to watch me. I stand in front of
the class and I walk the word by taking a short, light
step for unstressed syllables, and a long, energetic
step for stressed syllables. AL LI GA TOR
So, I should take one long, energetic step and then
three short, light steps. As I walk, I say the word.
 3nd phase:
I write this word on the board and then I elicit the
stress patterns from the children.
In this case the ‘a’ has the biggest box as it is the
stressed syllable.
And I demonstrate this with a few more words.
 4° phase:
Arrived at this point I put the children into pairs or
groups and they will take it in turn to read the words
off the board or walk the word.
In pair, one child first of all chooses a word from the
list on the board, and other child walks it, saying the
word out loud. The first child checks if the second
child has the stress pattern correct by looking at the
stress pattern on the board. Then they swap around.
5nd phase:
Arrived at the end of the
lesson, I ask the children to
record the words and their
stress patterns in their
vocabulary note books.
ALTERNATIVE:
• I can use this activity to learn/practise the stress patterns
of the names of countries, using the country’s flag to mark
the stress.
• Another variation is that the children can bend their
knees for unstressed syllables and jump for stressed
syllables. So, for example, for the word banana, they would
bend knees, jump and bend knees.
• There are other entertaining ways to indicate the stress
patterns of words. These include, for example, ‘duck hands’
where children put their four fingers to their thumb in
imitation of a duck’s beak. They open wide for stressed
syllables and only a little for unstressed syllables, waving
arms up and down, and, of course, clapping.